Michael DeHaan wrote: > Michael DeHaan wrote: > >> Steven W. Carter wrote: >> >> >>> An interesting idea for additional functionality behind this would be >>> to enable a "watch folder" in the cobbler directory where ISOs could >>> be dumped with a descriptive filename. Then Cobbler could >>> automatically add them to the PXE menu on a sync. >>> >>> For example, you could have a few images named: >>> >>> really_cool_image.iso >>> random_install_image.iso >>> >>> in a directory like /var/www/html/cobbler/ISO/ >>> >>> and then the menu would have entries that look like: >>> >>> really_cool_image >>> random_install_image >>> >>> Since these would have no other integration with the cobbler system, >>> Cobbler would only need to know their location to put them into the >>> PXE menu. This would also make it very easy to allow for updates to >>> the images without requiring any fuss with the Cobbler interface, >>> especially when these ISO images wouldn't be handled with any >>> kickstarting or any of the other nifty features that Cobbler usually >>> takes care of. Thoughts? >>> >>> ~Steven >>> >>> >> Yes, we could easily do something like this ... >> >> I think a first step is being able to flag a cobbler image object for >> use with memdisk, so you can do "cobbler image add --name=foo >> --path=/splat/foo.iso --bootmethod=memdisk >> >> Right now if you add an image record it shows up as if it was directly >> bootable, which is wrong. >> >> The watch directory behavior could then implemented as a cobbler >> pre-sync trigger. >> >> We currently don't ship many triggers, but we could ship more -- >> possibly installing all the "potentially useful" triggers in a parallel >> directory where someone could just create a symlink to enable them. >> >> As I still have more to do with image objects, I'll look into that first >> part today. >> >> --Michael >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 4:28 PM, Michael DeHaan <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: >>> >>> Michael DeHaan wrote: >>> > This is a neat feature, but takes some explaining. Previously >>> we have >>> > been able to support things like memtest through special code, >>> we found >>> > the image if installed and added it to certain PXE configs. >>> However you >>> > couldn't easily do things like make MAC address AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF >>> > automatically boot memtest, and so forth. >>> > >>> > Now, imagine that special code didn't exist and we could do it >>> > generically. Also imagine that we weren't booting something as >>> lame as >>> > memtest. What if we could easily boot anything we wanted, just >>> as we >>> > can deal with kernels and initrds? Now we can. >>> > >>> > cobbler image add --name=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment >>> --file=/opt/live.iso >>> > >>> > Though we don't have to imagine it, we have this on the devel branch >>> > now. Admittedly, I still tested with memtest and not >>> > SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment, though the concept is entirely the >>> same :) >>> > >>> > Further, we can do things like assign a specific MAC address to boot >>> > that live environment: >>> > >>> > cobbler system add --name=fooserver --mac=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF >>> > --image=SuperAwesomeLiveEnvironment >>> > >>> > The next time that system boots, it will boot that image. This >>> doesn't >>> > have to be an installation related image, it might just be a >>> firmware >>> > update disk. >>> > >>> > Note that I didn't use --profile here, I used --image. >>> > >>> > One of cobbler's goals is to be able to break down the abstraction >>> > between physical and virtual machines. Here we are able to use >>> "cobbler >>> > image" objects (with cobbler/koan 1.1 and later) to do installs both >>> > physically and virtually. >>> > >>> > The ability to netboot a live-image plays critically into our >>> desire to >>> > support net-deploying live image cloning environments, and may >>> also have >>> > applications for Stateless environments (LTSP thin clients?). >>> > >>> > Note that as with cobbler profiles, you can also assign arbitrary >>> > "append" options (i..e kernel options) to images. We could >>> also use >>> > this to streamline our existing support to memtest, but since >>> that is >>> > already "automatic" and relatively clever (it adds it >>> automatically if >>> > you have memtestx86+ installed) we probably will leave that as is. >>> > >>> > Anyhow, feel free to test this feature out on the devel branch >>> with any >>> > bootable images. >>> > >>> > I will say adding this feature was relatively complicated, so >>> with the >>> > image support, testing will be very welcome to see if we run >>> into any >>> > problems. No changes are in place for any existing profiles or >>> system >>> > objects, just note that now systems can also "inherit" from >>> images, or >>> > profiles, but not both at the same time. >>> > >>> > We still need to update the WebUI to take advantage of these >>> features. >>> > >>> > So, please help test this out, and if everything is good we'll >>> see about >>> > updating the Wiki to show how to use this with other tools, such >>> as the >>> > firmware update images that are already out there... and we can >>> also do >>> > some more testing with live environments and maybe even stateless >>> > applications. >>> > >>> > --Michael >>> > >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> > cobbler mailing list >>> > [email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]> >>> > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >>> > >>> >>> It takes more than this to PXE-boot a non-live image. >>> >>> I'll look into this and have some more instructions on the Wiki later >>> (and others are welcome to add to it once up). >>> >>> Doing some extra live testing now. >>> >>> --Michael >>> _______________________________________________ >>> cobbler mailing list >>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> cobbler mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> cobbler mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >> >> > > Lots of neverending changes/refinements on this. > > It looks like "image add/edit" is now going to take an --image-type > > Values: > > direct # PXEs directly (like "memtest"), does not support virt > iso # PXEs via memdisk helper, or supports virt installations > virt-clone # for things like virt-cloning, which is not yet supported > > If anyone can think of a better word for "direct", please suggest one. > > --Michael > > > > > _______________________________________________ > cobbler mailing list > [email protected] > https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler >
memdisk seems a bit unhappy, maybe we end up with "direct, memdisk, live, and virt-clone", and have live know to run livecd-iso-to-pxe if it needs to. Since Cobbler's job is partly to make dissimilar technology consumable in logical ways, I'm ultimately not sure how far we should go here into smoothing things out. Thoughts welcome and stay tuned ... --Michael _______________________________________________ cobbler mailing list [email protected] https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/cobbler
